cheese it, the cops!

giving her a good tongue-lashing

rarely has a book been trashed (by the guardian, new york review of books, new yorker, etc) as thoroughly and repeatedly upon its appearance; everyone is screwing naomi wolf's vagina. personally, i'm working on dick! my huge magical cosmic penis. did you know that there is a connection between the penis and the brain? it's scientific! and yet the schlong is as it were a deeply spiritual organ. plus without it i feel the vagina would have a different shape. god i love myself!

money and mimesis

i have to say that it is roughly impossible to know whether the national debt is something real and whether it is a serious problem. or at least, i have a hard time trying to tell. you still have left people starting with krugman calling for more - perhaps much much more - government spending, right now. and it's the right time to borrow, because interest rates are low. so let me ask you this: is there a level of debt that is really unsustainable? or is the debt a kind of abstract thing; gov debt is not much like household debt, and so on. because if there is a level of debt that has worse effects on the economy than 'austerity' i would like to know where it is. so say that the debt was 30 trillion. what effects would that actually have? or is it all kind of just moving markers around with no real concrete effects on anything?

i think in some ways it comes down to different ontologies of money or accounts of what it is, in particular at this stage of its development. so: it's this stuff that the government creates from nothing, more or less, but it embodies or represents wealth. or it is wealth. so, money i think for krugman types is in a way a simulacrum without original; it's a baudrillardian or pomo theory of money. in a way, the economy of a country takes place to a large extent on an imaginary level. there is no reason that money should be tied to anything concrete, or there need be no close relation between what the economy produces concretely and the wealth in the form of money it generates. the federal reserve can invent wealth and put it into the economy. then people will be able to borrow money, hire people, etc. it doesn't mater what, if anything, is produced on the other side, or at least the relation between the money and what is produced on the other side isn't direct: they don't vary together. it's the post-modern idea: the representation creates the reality.

on the other side you have people who take a mimetic view of money: it has to represent, be engaged directly with, concrete sources of value and exchange like commodities or materials or labor. you can't in the long term have a money supply that is wildly disproportionate to the concrete economy. the gold standard people want to impose a mimetic money, to reconcretize money or display it in its character as a representation of an underlying reality.

now one thing to say to any leftists who have any sympathy with marx: he always brought everything back to the actual material conditions of production: that was economic reality, and the fictions conjured around it were things to be seen through.

i personally intuit a mimetic view; i think this idea of spending yourself out of a recession becomes absurd after a certain point, and we have certainly dug ourselves quite the hole. the further disconnected fiscal policy or the money supply becomes from the actual production of the economy, the more you court an extraordinary collapse in which the fiction is horribly revealed. however, i am sincere in saying that i can't necessarily defend this intuition, certainly probably not against an expert.

meanwhile, i want you to think about the fact that all economists who in general favor a robust state role take up one position on this, and all who in general favor a small government role favor the other. i suggest that liberal economists think it's empirically true that deficit spending is nbasically not a problem and is the right apporach to a recession because they think the state should be bigger, and conservative economists think that government debt is disastrous because they think the state should be smaller. now there is no justificatory connection from the normative positions on the size of the state to the empirical claims about the effects of deficits. so either this is a massive coincidence, or really the empirical evidence is not doing any of the work. (the implication works the other way: if deficit spending really doesn't have bad effects etc then money is such-and-such. that is not the direction in which these folks are making the inference.)

what you and i and krugman should start by asking ourselves on something like this if we're going to have any intellectual integrity is: what do i want to believe; what, with regard to this particular matter, would it serve my purposes to believe? then insofar as this material is extraneous to anything that could be regarded as actual evidence, i've got to try to compensate for that in generating an opinion.

political speech as literary genre

i don't really understand why the average political speech isn't better. it's constructed like a laundry list or something, kind of moving from one theme to the next. i would think that the first thing to do would be to give the whole thing a single rhetorical or thematic focus. develop a single idea or metaphor, and then work in what you can in relation to it. even jesse jackson building 'keep hope alive' is better than these states of the union or convention speeches, but there are many ways to make a speech a single thing. obama could have built that speech brick by brick on citizenship or whatever it may be. not every speech has to mention wind turbines. i just don't think the average speech is actually written as a coherent single thing. this reflects the participation of many pens. but the most you're going to get in a speech like that is a list of sketchy policies and isolated good lines.

dk3

11:08 the contrast betwen the extremely stirring rhetoric and the big idea of all of us together and the sketchiness and modesty of any actual policies is just built to disappoint people, you know? if that was obvious the first time round, it is almost painful now. bit i'll tell you this, he is just so so much better a politician than romney; seems liable to win.

make no mistake. america faces a choice. which america will we live in? who are we reallly deep inside? and then here's how that cashes out: here's the same tax adjustments we've been advocating for four years.

11:04 nothing wrong with that; it had a good crescendo. i'd say it almost caught fire a few times, but not quite. he should have maybe structured the whole thing around the concept of citizenship; he seemed to focus the argument on that bit.

10:57 you did that: again a version of that perot move; a little humility is well.

10:55 he's giving today's statist argument: we have to pull together! it's all of us! but then, what should we do with the fact that it rests on coercion?

10:50 has he done much on foreclosures?

10:49 when he talks about romney cutting the taxes of the rich, is he talking about not permitting the bush cuts to lapse?

10:48 has obama put forward a detailed plan for tax reform?

10:47 yeah rolling over romney right now on military and international. he can kill on that.

10:43 boilerplate so far. but his voice is rising in epiphanic ecstasy.

10:38 the united states of how? the united states of what? the united states of who, who?

10:35 he's not in his loose black-guy campaign mode, at least not yet. that's when he rocks.

10:32 o's like gary johnson are all he way live.

10:30 all i want is to play by the rules. that's the bargain!!!

10:25 our guy has aged remarkably. only dude who's had a harder four years than me.

10:22 this video is bloated, interminable, and redundant with everything else. simplify.

10:17 obama must owe some sort of debt to durbin. put up a young gun in that position. john boehner killed barack's mom. orioles hitting mad home runs.

10:03 joe biden has no idea what could be meant by 'culture of dependency.'

9:50 honestly, he's kind of bombing. but that will be ok from obama's point of view. 'the finest warriors in the history of the world!' then just continue: 'better, better than the roman centurions! the golden horde! edo-era samurai! better than the wehrmacht, mel gibson in braveheart, crazy horse! they'd have kicked che's ass! fuck the fucking knights of the fucking round table! anyone who denies that or qualifies it in any way, i'll slap em silly i tell you!'

9:46 folks, my dad respected barack obama...would have respected barack obama if he'd been around. that's perfect biden: with all the courage and passion of a noble soul, he make shit up right there and then! it's like listening to ornette coleman, but without the art. omelette coleman.

9:40 a job is about respect. it's about dignity. ok then what are food stamps about? like i say, the right isn't the only side which deploys the stigma.

9:32 uh-oh the rattletrap is in the house. the flibbertigibbet. julia louis-dreyfus was priceless as biden.

9:30 you could do worse than the straight jackie wilson your love (keeps lifting me).

9:27 actually, being introduced by your own tribute video as the music swells etc is quite a bit like dying by auto-erotic asphyxiation.

9:26 they certainly decided to go all in on the political use of bin laden. well hard to begrudge them that, actually.

9:24 joe biden's mom taught him that no one is better than he is. she was wrong about that. this video hs the goofiest narrator ever.

9:23 what i love most about america is the convenience stores.

9:13 i revile success. and i definitely don't think succesful people should turn around and help others. that will just drag you down.

9:09 i don't think the republicans really tried on international stuff, with the exception of condi. mitt really has no credibility. even santorum wold have had a better case. like i say, obama is fortunate in his opponent. the militarism of this convention is remarkable, but that started with kerry.

8:53 but obama should relentlessly emphasize foreign affairs and security, in the key kerry is hitting here. it is remarkable that the democrats have neutralized the republican advantage on this. too bad kerry couldn't even make himself oppose iraq in 2004.

8:45 at least they spray-tanned john kerry. he was looking horror-film dire.

8:35 funny how putting the turncoat onstage has become a ritual; crist in this case. artur davis last week.

8:30 cnn has actually been touting this schweitzer dude for president one day. i do not think so. such a rugged frontiersman or else a borscht-belt comic.

8:22 obviously the actresses and stuff are possessed on the stage. i'm not sure this is the best approach in your attempt to reach the undecided voter etc. eva longoria started with nothing. so did adam jones.

8:18 grantholm is driving them to utter madness with her wild, smurf-like gesticulations. it's like a blood orgy of unanimous destruction!

8:09 americans, or at any rate american politicians, appear to know exactly one narrative: the american dream. work hard and make a better future for your kids. ok but it begins to seem insincere in version xxx. maybe we have more than one story if we really dig? if not we best get a writer on it.

7:48 really? scarlett johansson? damn, girl. don't swim into bill's ambit. try to steer away from kennedys, edwardses, etc.

7:36 orioles 4, yankess yet to bat.

6:52 like each individual american, america itself grows from the middle out.

5:27 now they're going to pretend to believe in god and stuff.

5:04 james taylor is ok, but he's not like that former lead singer of night ranger who tore the republicans to shreds. the whole convention should be sheer hardcore: all killing joke all the time. actually, james taylor is not ok.

4:35 the middle class is so mediocre. maybe we can repatriate them to their homeland, middle earth, so we don't have to resort to ethnic cleansing. no, really. ever see death of a salesman? the middle class doesn't have the guts to be extremely rich or extremely poor, and the extremely rich and the extremely poor should unite against them. screw them with their little nuclear families. they live like leeches or vampires on the ingenuity of the rich and labor of the poor. i cast sheer ordure upon them and all their ilk. i revile and abominate the middle class. i annihilate them in my imagination retroactively so they never existed at all. 

4:24 one unbelievable mis-step by the obama admin was giving far too optimitstic a set of initial predictions of where the economy would go, what the effect of the stimulus package would be, etc. he ought at least to acknowledge that, work it into the 'we found a disaster' narrative.

4:15 i think people, in particular many of obama's former enthusiasts, now underestimate him. maybe it's because i am myself a prof, but i actually do think he has a common touch on a good day. clinton is a true master, but obama is an extraordinary politician. people have oscillated way too much: too over-the-top enraptured; too disillusioned. i predict he'll show y'all again tonight. right i'll be blogging along this evenin.

i can quit any time i want.

if you believe that the cia etc only waterboarded three people, you are a chump. let's say that they might have misplaced a few of the other detainees.

gender polarization

i'm good with a new cohort of young feminists emerging, and the republican approach this year has stoked the fire. but i'm going to object a bit to some of the gender polarization. sarah fluke characterized a republican america as "an America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it." now i want to say, first of all, that men often use birth control on our very own nads. also, right, i'm not going to get pregnant. but i have always thought of or at least wanted to think of birth control of whatever kind as something my partner and i were doing together: decisions we were both making etc. you know, men can be ridiculously irresponsible about such things, but i am not willing just to turn over reproduction to women entirely: we're in this process together, along with its decisions and its difficulties and its effects. men's lives are changed by having children too. ok we're not quite engaged in precisely the same way as women. but we are extremely engaged. i say birth control, abortion, etc are men's issues too.

the gender gap, if you ask me, is a bit disturbing and it is increasing. it would be very weird to have men vs. women as the basic political structure. actually i think we're just not all that different, and that we're all in this - whatever this is - together. believe me i know tha the basic problem with this is presented by patriarchy and a history of politics and economics that controls women's bodies. there is something to fight for/about. but sweetie, we are your fathers, your brothers, your sons, your friends, your partners. 

[is 'sweetie' too condescending? what term could i use to express affection?]

dk2

10:56 you know, elizabeth warren told her rags-to-harvard-prof story, and taking charlotte together with tampa, it's hard not to see american politics as basically a competition between (overlapping) elites: academic and biz types, for one thing.

10:53 been listening to warren etc in the car. she had good moments. clinton of course is masterful.

12:06 sadly i will be toodling hither and yon at least until clinton. if you're a dem don't start gloating yet; plenty can still go horribly, mortifyingly wrong. still the obama org is singularly professional. wait actually i might give snippets before i pull out of baltimore at 8:30.

11:30 the person who removed 'god' from the democratic platform was very foolish: just handing out sticks.

8:53 david brooks made a good observation last night; the things the delegates were most intense about were social issues: gay marriage and abortion. mentions of these are what was cheered most enthusiatically. now a couple of observations about this; i think it reflects a bit of retrenchment to the base in the democratic party: naral and union groups, for example, had a huge presence. well, they did in 2008 too, but on the other hand obama brought all sorts of nerw people/energies into the party. whatever energy remains is basically where it always was, and even people not directly in the advocacy groups use issues like this to try to whip up their own enthusiasm, as in the republicans too. now i think this is one reason why the election is on a knife's edge, and certainly obama is unlikely to carry some of the states he did last time, such as north carolina and indiana.

my entry on beauty for the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is up.

donkey kong

11:06 only one sentence is permitted on gay marriage: 'people can love who they love,' and variations. you can do better than euphemisms and stuff.

11:04 very, very good.

 11:04 both parties tell exactly the same american-dream story, over and over. 

10:48 the dems always frame it in terms of people who do what they're supposed to, play by the rules, do what they were told to do etc. that's the way they think about life, or about us.

10:47 i got my ph.d. in 1989 with about 60k in student loans. i've paid monthly ever since. i still owe 40.

10:46 plus she's just straight-up good.

10:34 speaking of african warrior queens, i definitely crush on michelle. put her in a tight fro, and i'd be groveling.

10:26 americans still love their mommies.

10:25 orioles tied with yankees for lead in al eastern division.

10:19 'everybody should get and stay in the middle class.' this is conceptually impossible.

10:16 this castro guy's ok. he's not absolutely inserting a grenade in me and pulling the pin, though.

10:15 i'll vote democratic, but i want a check every month.

10:13 my great great etc came with the pilgrims, and ever since my direct antecedent jemima sawtelle was captured by the indians (for real!) we've been victimized by afffirmative action programs for waves of yucky minorities.

10:11 julian castro's grandmother came from nothing.

10:23 orioles and yankees tied for al eastern division lead.

10:10 if i was in danger of fogetting the presiden'ts name, i'm good now.

10:09 there's something strange about being introduced by your identical twin.

10:07 'we seek a future of more opportunity, not a future of less opportunity' (o'malley). they've hired the scriptwriters from sesame street again. forward. not back. not not back, not not not back.

10:00 kind of a parade of future possible vice presidents. i just wish they were gigantic macy's balloons. o'malley's sleep-walking through everybody's speech.

9:51 patrick, among others, is going all libertarian and  'individual rights' on abortion and marriage. aww throw in marijuana, and then just keep going. everyone believes in some liberties. you can see why patrick has been a star; kind of rubio-esque.

9:46 orioles 12, blue jays 0

9:43 they are completely ready to nominate a woman. but the bench seems a little thin after hillary? napolitano is an impressive person. it'll be john edwards's turn, though.

9:37 they have to be psyched that they're not nominating mitt romney. not to mention john kerry. "now we're expecting a video on pay equity." man they're just trying to create disgruntled male loners.

9:34 barack's family is funky and obscure. he's such an alien!

9:20 i do like rahm's kick-assedness, though.

9:16 sibelius is a very dull speaker.

9:10 i'm not sure the merriest way to frame michelle's contribution is as a 'character witness.' that's when you've been convicted and they're moving on to the sentencing phase.

9:00 it's hard to deny that rich people know a lot about the way the economy works.

8:57 orioles 7, blue jays 0.  rays 4, yankees 2.

8:11 the democratic convention looks like america, or like america will look when everybody is a unionized government employee. i'm afraid i can't help you with that. that's neither my job nor my problem. i don't make the rules. eventually, everyone will be an administrator in the dc public school system. then we'll all be in the kiddle mass.

7:54 anonymous should really concentrate on seizing control of the video system. retain absolute calm.

7:46 oh hell, more kennedys. what is he getting up to after the show, i wonder? ooph this one looks like a ginger jack.

7:40 ken salazar's parents came from nothing. ex nihilo, baby: the slogan of the moment. but while the ancestors of republicans made it by initiative and entrepreneurship and sheer ploxie and muck or by reading ayn rand novels, the ancestors of democrats made it because of new deal social safety-net programs.

7:34 i'm glad they included carter. there have been worse human beings. as long as i don't have to hear him on npr on another book tour.

7:13 humanizing people is boring. caninize them or something. woof!

7:07 and now...the electrifying harry reid.

6:40 i don't think anybody should, or really does, vote on the sheer question of whether they themselves are better off than they were four years ago. am i better off? hard to say, really; i'm in a completely different situation. if i was making more or less or i was unemployed, how confident would i be blaming or crediting the president of the united states as opposed to myself, my boss, or sheer luck? people are more likely to vote on a vague vibe of where the country's at than on whether their divorce settlement worked out.

6:30 looking at the crowd in charlotte, i have to say i'd be more comfortable hanging out with them than the reps. on the other hand their opinions would drive me apewire. white guys are under-represented. hey wait isn't this our country? remember when we ran everything? we did great! we can go back. republicans might re-think women's suffrage while they're at it.

5:06 one thing we can agree on. after all, we aren't red or blue, we're black white and brown, male and female. the middle class, if any, sucks and must be destroyed. what a pathetic little second-class class it is. and plus have you seen their lawns and suvs? they are destroying the planet. the only group worth dealing with at all is the second 1%, which i feel can be peeled off the 99.

5:02 wow debbie wasserman-schultz is really dolled up. no doubt she's trying to transcend mike huckabee's image of her. if huckabee's in the next room again, she might want to call security. 

4:36 nevertheless, i'll blog through the dem fog this evening. forward!

12:25 my god now they're saying that michelle's job tonight is to humanize barack. i guess the basic gender split is that we dudes put our humanity in the hands of women, or place it in a blind trust with a woman as executrix.

collectividualism

it's pretty interesting that the presidential election has focused on individualism vs. collectivism: kind of a pretty wide abstract conceptual frame. but i want to say that the way it's polarized is extremely primitive and silly. if you try to attribute everything to the initiative of hermeticaly-sealed individuals, you're just tripping; everyone except wolf boy is working in connection to other people, a whole set of cutural histories, right infrastructure funded by taxation (i.e., er, coercion). but on the other hand there ain't no collective without individuals, and if you're basicaly saying we're all in this together so i should agree with you, that's just sad. anyway: you built it vs we built it is just too ham-handed, and obviously is a false dilemma.

pivot

one of the msnbc/nyt narratives this morning is that they are puzzled that the republicans did not pivot toward the center. but what they might not be in the best position to understand is that the republicans think they did pivot. that's why there was a more-than-usual parade of tokens. they certainly utterly softened their tone on immigration, to the point that i don't think anyone has any actual idesa what romney's position is. they absolutely did not emphasize abortion, gay marriage, and so on, though there were a few mentions by people they can't fully control, like santorum. every single speaker, especially romney, paid tribute to the awesomeness of women, including women in the workforce etc.